8 Conflict Best Practices (Part 1) — How to Navigate Conflict Without Fighting

Chapters:

1. Conflict Doesn’t Have to Be a Fight
Why disagreement doesn’t mean you’re on opposing sides—and how conflict can be collaborative.

2. Why Most of Us Were Never Taught How to Repair
How cultural and imperial conditioning trains us toward disconnection instead of collaboration.

3. From War Paradigm to Repair Culture
Reframing conflict as something you navigate together, not something you survive.

Best Practice #1: Create Conscious Agreements

4. Why Agreements Matter Before Conflict Happens
How conscious agreements create safety and prevent escalation.

5. Rules vs. Agreements: What Actually Builds Trust
Why rules feel punitive—and agreements feel collaborative.

6. The Power of Mutual Consent in Conflict
How shared buy-in creates a strong container for repair.

7. Why Perfection Isn’t the Goal
Expecting unconscious patterns to show up—and learning to notice them sooner.

8. Repair as a Practice, Not a Performance
How noticing deviation is what allows reconnection.

Best Practice #2: Stay on the Same Team

9. The Difference Between a Conflict and a Fight
Understanding misalignment as neutral—not personal or threatening.

10. Misalignment Without Emotional Charge
Why scheduling conflicts reveal how collaboration actually works.

11. Emotional Misalignment and Triggered Responses
When one nervous system is activated and the other isn’t.

12. How Pain Turns Into Attack
Why lashing out is often an unconscious response to hurt.

13. “Are We Fighting?” — A Pattern Interrupt
Using neutral curiosity to disrupt escalation and invite reconnection.

14. Why This Only Works With Shared Agreements
How mutual intention keeps the question from feeling accusatory.

15. When Taking a Break Is the Most Collaborative Move
Exiting fight energy without abandoning connection.

16. Storming Out vs. Pausing With Intention
The energetic difference between war energy and collaboration.

17. How to Take a Break Without Creating More Distance
Setting clear intentions to circle back and repair.

Best Practice #3: Slow Down (Even 10%)

18. Why Rushing Is a Form of Violence
How speed disconnects us from care, presence, and empathy.

19. What Slowing Down Actually Changes
Why unconscious patterns surface faster when we rush.

20. The Cost of Moving Too Fast in Conflict
How urgency increases mistakes, reactivity, and harm.

21. Slowing Down as a Radical Act
Why even 10% less speed can transform conflict outcomes.

Best Practice #4: Approach Assumptions With Curiosity

22. How Assumptions Escalate Conflict
Why reacting to meaning instead of words creates distance.

23. The “I’m Busy” Example
How neutral statements get filtered through old wounds.

24. Separating Words From Interpretation
Clarifying what was said versus what was assumed.

25. Letting Feelings Move Before Speaking
Why emotional waves need space before communication.

26. Naming Sensation Instead of Accusation
Shifting from blame to curiosity and self-awareness.

27. How Simple Clarification Restores Alignment
Why many conflicts dissolve once assumptions are checked.

28. Why This Episode Is Only Part One
Recognizing when there’s too much information to integrate at once.

29. What’s Coming in Part Two
Preview of the remaining four conflict best practices.

30. Invitation: Deepening These Skills Inside The Conscious Couple
How ongoing practice, somatics, and support turn theory into lived change.

What if you could navigate conflict without fighting? A lot of people don't realize that just because you're in a conflict doesn't have to mean that you're in a fight. Although that is the mainstream way of relating to conflicts, you just assume that you're not on the same team, that you're turning against each other. Um, and that's why I want to share with you eight best practices for navigating conflict together, because more likely than not, you didn't learn this as a kid and that's not your fault. You know, no shame to your parents. It's not their fault either. Um, these skills and these practices are just missing culturally. Um, working through conflict collaboratively is not a norm within the U S empire or within the wider context of global imperialism. That's just not a cultural norm. Um, and so by sharing these best practices, it can just be something to anchor you into coming back to connection more quickly after you're navigating a conflict. So let's get into it. What if your sacred partnership could be a source of pleasure and stability amidst the chaos of these times? I'm your host, Forrest Williams, certified relationship coach and disciple of love. And I help you learn the art of trust by waking up from unconscious patterns. So you can enjoy the pleasure of relating.

Okay. So the very first thing I'm going to recommend that you do during conflict is to actually create some conscious agreements around how are you navigating conflict? And what you're doing here is you're creating a culture of repair, because if you default to the programming that you grew up with, I mean, it's essentially war programming, you know? So that's that war paradigm is not going to lead you towards connection. It's always going to lead you towards disconnection. So the very first way to counteract that is to actually just create some conscious agreements around how do we want to navigate conflict? And, you know, today I'm going to give you a examples. Um, but what is going to make this the most effective for you? If this feels authentic to you, if this is something that you decide you want to empower? So if there's one of these things that you don't resonate with, don't include it because it's not going to work for you. It's only going to work if these are actual agreements. What do I mean by agreements? Well, let's look at what is the difference between a rule and an agreement. Let's start with the rule. So if you think of a ruler, like a king or a queen, someone who rules over, um, this is not a collaborative paradigm. This is part of that hierarchical relationship war paradigm. So a rule, just for example, if I were to tell you, okay, here's eight rules for navigating conflict, it sounds mandatory. I'm laughing cause I would never say that it feels awkward. Um, and if you were to not follow one of these rules, it's so easily breakable. So you're breaking the rules. Um, it's flimsy, it's fragile, it's brittle. It's not an effective container. You want a container that can be flexible. Um, but also powerful at the same time in rules. They're easy to break because more likely than not, they're coming from the outside in, meaning it could be me telling you, this is a rule. You have to follow it. Or it could be a king or a queen is telling you a rule or even the government, you know, if you're not agreeing to it, then it actually is more of a rule because it's someone else's decision. It's not your decision. So the difference between a rule and an agreement is that an agreement is a mutual collaboration. There's mutual consent. You're both emotionally invested in what you're agreeing to. Um, and this makes a huge difference because what you're looking at here is creating a container for conflict. So if there's zero container at all, you're going to default to the, those war relationship norms. You're going to turn against each other. Things might escalate. It could really get emotionally intense really quickly because there's no conscious way of relating to it. You're just reenacting those war norms. Um, Um, so the container is the thing that's going to counteract those unconscious war norms. And so the stronger the container, the more effectively you're going to be able to stay on the same team and collaborate through conflict. And that's the whole idea. Um, so let me give you an example. If you create a container that's based on rules, um, maybe one of, one of you breaks the rules. So let's say your partner breaks the rules and you say, Hey, you're breaking the rule. That's not allowed or whatever. It's going to feel like it's pushing you further apart and not bringing you closer together because you're essentially saying, Hey, and there's this energy of punishment behind it. And of course, punishment is not a connecting vibe. Punishment does not motivate anyone. Maybe it might motivate you out of fear, but fear is not a connecting energy. It's an energy that has you tense up and defend yourself. Um, and so when you're creating a container that's based on mutual agreements, there's just like a softness to it. And if you think of a neutral referee, just being like, Oh, that went out of bounds. There's no judgment about you going out of bounds. It's just an acknowledgement, you know, just a neutral feedback of like, Hey, this is what we agreed to. And it looks like we're deviating from that a little bit. So let's bring it back into the agreement. And that's what makes it an effective container. There's no punishment behind it because you're both on board with what you're practicing. And so if one of you is deviating from what you're practicing, which spoiler alert, a hundred percent is going to happen. Okay. Because I've been doing this for six years and it happens to me all the time. Um, it happens to me much less than it used to, but like I'm saying, it's this unconscious word programming that is just the default way of behaving. Cause it's so unconscious. You're not doing it on purpose. And so it's not about doing it perfectly, not deviating at all. It's about noticing when you're deviating, because what you can expect is that programming is going to show up. And so you just want to be able to spot it when it's there, because when you're spotting it, that creates the opportunity to bring it back towards the container, towards what you're agreeing to. So

the first recommendation I would offer as a best practice when you're navigating conflict conflict is to create conscious agreements. And like I said, this is going to be unique to each person involved. It could be unique to your personality, to your triggers. You might know what you need during a conflict better than I know what you need. I don't even, I might not know you. I might know you. I don't know who's listening to this, but the point is that it's going to be unique to everyone. What I'm offering you today is just some general best practices, but you can always tweak these to be more authentic to you. Because if I just told you, okay, go make your own conscious agreements, you might be like, where do I start? And so I'm just giving you a framework to kind of pull from. But again, I'm going to say this because it's actually like the most important thing. If both of you are not on board with one of these agreements, then it's not an agreement. It's a rule. And it's not going to be effective because rules don't bring people closer together. So keep that in mind as I share these best practices with you.

Best practice number two is to stay on the same team. I mean, this is actually human nature is to collaborate is to love. And it's really that that foreign energy, that war energy that creeps into our aura, creeps into our energetic space that has us turning against each other during conflict. So let's actually just look at what's the difference between a fight and a conflict, because this could really change the way that you even just approach conflict or look at conflict that can make it a lot easier to stay on the same team. So when we look at a conflict, really, it's just a misalignment and a misalignment can be neutral. It can be positive. It can be negative. It just depends on how you relate to it. So the idea here, let me give you just a neutral example of a misalignment, a scheduling conflict. You know, let's say you're booking with your therapist and you're like, hey, do you have anything on this date? And they're like, no, but I have something on this date. It's a very neutral thing. It's not emotionally charged. You're not feeling rejected because there's a scheduling misalignment. What you're doing is you're actually working together to find where do you finally align? Might take two, three, four, 10 times before you get there. And so the question I have for you is how do you want to approach misalignment? Do you want to collaborate, stay on the same team, or do you want to turn against each other, which is essentially a fight? And you, I mean, I don't have to explain this to you. You know, which one is the more connecting and actually the more productive option. So what is the difference between a fight and a conflict? A fight means you're turning against each other. A conflict is just a misalignment. So you get to choose, do you want to collaborate when there are misalignments that come up? So scheduling conflict is really easy to comprehend because it is neutral, but let's say, um, let's look at an example that is not neutral. Um, so let's say you say something that really triggers your partner and you had no idea, you don't understand where their big emotional reaction is coming from. So you're having a misalignment in emotional experience. You're feeling totally cool, calm, your nervous system is regulated. Your partner is having an emotional reaction. There's a level of emotional intensity that is increasing that you're just not experiencing. And so in that way, your emotional experience is misaligned. Or we could even look at maybe the behavior that you did or, um, the thing that you said carries a different emotional weight for each of you. Um, and so it's misaligned in the weight that it carries. So obviously when there's emotional weight attached to a conflict, and especially, you know, if it's one person and not the other, um, it, you're more likely to have some sort of unconscious reaction to this. So let's say you feel some pain and you lash out could be an example. And I made a whole episode about weaponizing pain, which is a very common unconscious pattern. People fall into these days. Um, episode two, if you want to like go deeper into that, but what I want to offer you here is what is a way to disrupt this pattern? And I mean, this is actually really simple. And in my experience personally, this really works for me and my partner. Um, so I mean, this happens, I don't, it's not that my partner's like always latching out of here or something like we, it goes both ways, you know, we fall into these unconscious patterns. But a few times when my partner has felt pain and then lashed out at me, I would just ask, I'm like, are we fighting?

And notice I'm not saying it from a place of punishment or judgment. I'm asking it in a way that's neutral. Like the referee saying, Hey, are we out of bounds? Like, can we actually just look at this together? Cause I'm not saying, Hey, are you attacking me? Which is way more charged. I'm accusing her basically of doing something to me, but it's the, are we fighting? Like we're in this together. Are we on the same team or are we not? Um, that question has been really disarming. So what it does is, you know, it's not something you would normally do. Um, it's not a default programming thing to say. And so in a way it's like throwing a wrench in, in the, the programming. So it kind of, um, makes you do a double take and it kind of helps you snap out of it. And you're like, Oh my God, are we fighting? I think I'm reacting. And again, this will only work if there's a mutual agreement to not fight. If there's a mutual agreement to stay on the same team, which means despite the pain, the stress, the tension, or whatever is coming up for you. Can you collaborate as much as possible? And I'm not saying that's an easy thing to do. It is a practice, something you practice over and over again. And like I said, I slip up all the time and that's okay. Like, I'm actually not upset about that at all. Because I am practicing collaboration. And as long as that is my intention, and that's the shared intention between me and my partner, it really helps me notice in the moment whenever I'm deviating from collaboration. And it's that practice of noticing and then realigning towards my intention or our mutual agreements that, you know, I like, I don't feel any guilt. I don't feel any drama about it. I'm like, Oh, whoops, my unconscious programming came out. You know, sorry, did that hurt? Let's repair that, you know. But what matters is that you're bringing it back to collaboration. That is the practice. And the more you do that over time, the easier it's going to be and the more consistently it's going to happen without you needing to try so hard to do it. What you're doing by practicing this is you're creating a new habit until eventually it becomes your new automatic. So this is how you reprogram that unconscious war programming. You just practice something over and over again. And if you mess up, okay, don't make it the end of the world because it's, it's like, you're going to move forward one way or another. And so do you want to move forward with a bunch of weight and heaviness and judgment, or do you want to just actually pick yourself up, brush yourself off and move forward? You get to choose your experience here. So staying on the same team, a practical tip is, um, it's just like disrupting the pattern by meeting that kind of energy of an attack or, um, some pain that's being projected outwards with this kind of question that's rooted in neutrality and curiosity. It's not an accusation or a punishment, but it's like, are we on the same team? Are we fighting? And that there is an invitation to realign to, um, the agreements. And look, this is easier to do if one person is triggered and the other is not a lot harder to do. And both of you are triggered because maybe you are reacting and you're fighting. Okay. But even then there's still the possibility of observing like, Oh, this doesn't feel great. This fighting feels disconnecting. What is the next step? What would it take for us to reconnect? And this could be something you could do. You could just be like, Oh my God, are we fighting? Um, and then of course, maybe, um, maybe it's, it's too soon to be like, yeah, we're fighting. Oh, well, let's get back together. Maybe there's a lot of hurt and a lot of emotional weight there. And so it's fine to take a break, you know, just because you notice you're fighting doesn't mean you get to just like skip into the sunset, holding hands through a field of flowers. It's not like it fixes things. It's just a feedback mechanism to invite you back into alignment. And sometimes if compassion is unavailable to you, the, the biggest thing that could bring you back into alignment is taking a break. Um, you just exit out of that fight energy. And then, um, when it's, when you're ready to reconnect, you can reset the intention of like, okay, let's collaborate. But it's a lot harder to collaborate when your emotions are really high. Um, and one thing I want to mention here is, you know, there's different energies from which you can take a break. If you are taking a break from an energy of war, AKA an energy of fighting, it could be, maybe you storm out the door with no communication and you slam the door. Okay. That's going to make it even more tense. When you do come back together, it makes for, um, a sharper segue into the reconnection part. This isn't always available, but if it is what you can practice is taking a break from the energy of collaboration. So it doesn't mean you have to be perfectly regulated to communicate by no means. I mean, that's the point of taking a break is that you're dysregulated, but you can just say, Hey, listen, I am dysregulated. Let's circle back in five minutes. And so there's something collaborative here about just communicating. I've hit max capacity. I need to take a break. And there's even more specificity in let's circle back in five minutes, or maybe sometimes it's 20 minutes or however much time you need. Um, but it, it can signal safety and teamwork to both of you. If you're able to say, okay, we are going to circle back eventually. It's not, you're dramatically storming out. You went off in your car somewhere. I don't know where you're going or when you're coming back or what you're doing. Cause that's the energy of fighting. It's the absence of communication. Um, versus the energy of collaborating is just communicating, setting an attention and having an agreement. And that doesn't mean it's a rule, right? So it's not like, okay, let's circle back in 20 minutes. Let's say one person isn't ready after 20 minutes. Maybe they're deep in their journaling session. So it's not to use that as a rule against someone and say, Hey, you're not ready in 20 minutes. I'm punishing you now. Well, energetically. The idea is like, you know, it's a gesture of diplomacy to say, let's meet up again. Let's take a break and circle back. And so you can check in in 20 minutes. And if you're both ready, then great. You can take the next step. Um, but the most collaborative move to do there is just to honor where each of you are at. Do you have the capacity after 20 minutes to reconnect? And either way is going to be fine. If you don't have the capacity, set another intention. Let's check back in, in 10 minutes or in 20 minutes, best perhaps number three that I'm going to offer you is to slow the fuck down.

No, I'm just kidding. You don't have to slow the fuck down, but you can slow down even just 10%. It's going to make a huge difference, huge difference. And I'll tell you why.

There is a study that they did. I don't have this off the top of my head. I actually learned this in college. It was like in a sociology class. It was fascinating. Um, but there's a legit study behind it, um, where I think it was New York city. Uh, there was a homeless person on the street asking for money and they had sociologists observing the whole interaction. Um, and so the question here was who gives money to the homeless? Is it people who are more generous? Is it people who have a bigger heart? X, Y, Z? Is it a specific demographic, a certain income level? The results were fascinating. It really surprised me. It turns out the people that gave money to the homeless, it had nothing to do with demographics or income level, um, or how kind hearted they were. Although I'm sure that's true to some degree. I don't know, but the findings of the study found that people who were less in a rush were more likely to give. And when people were in a hurry, they were less likely to give. And so there's this idea that rushing is violence. I think I've heard this, um, from the NAP ministry. Um, if you're familiar with that organization, I think it's run by, what's her name? Uh, Trista Hershey. Don't quote me on that. Maybe I'll link it. I don't remember. I'm just pulling from memory here, but there's this idea that rushing is violence. Um, you know, if you can picture in your head, you and your partner are going on a bike ride together. Um, and imagine you're both in sync, your bikes are right next to each other. Um, and you're, you're synced up. You're riding at the same pace. You're alongside each other. You're taking everything in. You're sharing this experience together. And now imagine this image in your mind. Imagine your partner is actually maybe like stronger than you, or maybe you just ate a meal and they didn't, and they're just rushing ahead of you and they're leaving you in the dust. I mean, this isn't the most violent thing ever, but what I'm trying to convey here is that when you're out of sync, as far as the pace that you're moving at, um, it can feel really disconnecting. And when I think about moments when, you know, if I've ever made a mistake in the kitchen, like one time I was grading carrots and my knuckle like got caught in the carrot grater. It hurts so bad. It took forever to heal. It took months. Um, it's because I was in a hurry. I was rushing. Right. Like I use a knife every day in the kitchen. I use a carrot grater all the time. It's one of my favorite things to eat is like grated carrots, like in a salad or really just however I love grated carrots. Um, you know, and so why did I injure myself this one time? It's because I was in a hurry. So you're more likely to make mistakes when you're in a hurry. You're more likely to fall into those unconscious habits when you're in a hurry. Um, when you're in a rush, you're just being less conscious. And so you're more running on that default programming, which we know is violent because it is war programming.

So even if you can slow down just 10%, I mean, it's honestly pretty radical within capitalism, just 10%, it might feel kind of challenging, but 10% can go a long way.

Best practice number four, and this really feeds on slowing things down is to approach assumptions with curiosity. So, you know, like I said, I've been coaching people around building trust for six years and the common pattern that I find, one of the most common ones is that people will assume something. And then they're reacting emotionally to whatever they're assuming. So I'll give you an example. Let's say, um, my partner is asking me, do I want to go on a walk with her? And I say, oh, um, not right now. I'm busy. And then let's say, um, you know, through the filter of her past experience or maybe her fears or her insecurities, she's, she's reading into that and she's making a meaning of it. And maybe it means that I'm not interested in hanging out with her or I'm not interested in dating her. Maybe she feels rejected by it. And so that's the assumption. The assumption is, oh, you don't want to hang out with me. And this is not a real example that we've experienced, by the way, never had that happen. But, um, I don't know. There's many examples. I'm just pulling one. Um, this can feel really disconnecting when you are reacting to what you're assuming, because more often than not, the assumption is not true. And look, sometimes it is okay. But very often it is not. And so it makes it a lot more difficult to communicate when you're reacting emotionally. Maybe your partner feels attacked or even just confused. And this could trigger defensiveness around like, wait, I don't understand what's going on. Am I the bad guy? What did I do wrong? I'm just busy right now. Right. Um, yeah. And so when you're reacting from that, um, interpretation of what the person said, it, it just makes it harder to reconnect and it takes longer to reconnect. Cause what you really need to do is clarify what was the message that was said. So the actual words that were said is I'm not busy right now. I'm not available. The implication is I'm not available to go on this walk with you. Um, but the meaning that was made of out of it was like, you don't like me, you're rejecting me. And so how do you approach assumptions with curiosity? Well, first you just have to let that feeling kind of move through its waves in your body because feelings do move in waves. They are energy and motion.

So part of this is slowing down, taking a pause before communicating, take a deep breath, let that feeling just kind of ebb and flow. You can observe it. And then you could even name like, Ooh, I noticed I'm feeling some tension in my chest or, Ooh, that kind of held some weight for me. Is this what you're saying? Are you saying that you don't want to hang out with me right now? Cause that's what I'm hearing or that's what I'm understanding. And then, you know, the next person could be like, Oh, not at all. I would love to hang out with you. I'm just actually busy in this moment, but in like 20 minutes, we can go on a walk. Are you available then? And then boom, conflict resolved. There is an alignment. There's a resolution. Um, but in the contrast, if you to initiate that conversation from, you don't like me, or maybe it's not even something you say, maybe it's just an emotional reaction you have, um, where you're acting maybe in defiance, maybe you go, huh? And you just kind of stomp your feet. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but you can just get an idea of the energy of, okay, well, I'm going to treat you as if you're rejecting me now. And now I'm going to harden against you and I'm going to close off against you. And I'm actually going to ignore you later when you are available. It's just disconnecting, right? So noticing your assumptions is going to go a long way and clarify, is this what you meant to say? Cause this is how I'm interpreting what you said.

So let's actually take a little pause right here. Um, because as I was editing this, I was listening and I was thinking, Oh my goodness, this is so much information. it's just a lot to take in. So I think it makes the most sense to actually split this up into two different parts. Um, so to listen to the remaining four best practices for conflict, check out the next episode. Oh, and by the way, my partner Phoenix Grace and I are going to be hosting a four month course coming up here, um, in August 10th, where we're going to spend a whole month going into conflict. Um, so if you want to dive deeper into this and really put the emphasis on how are you putting this into practice, where are you getting stuck and receiving some really personalized support, you can check out our four month course. It's called the conscious couple. And I'm going to tell you a little bit more about that right now.

If you're serious about making your partnership, a source of pleasure and stability amidst the chaos of these times, my new course, the conscious couple is for you. This is a radically holistic course for couples who value spiritual growth and want to invest in their relationship. I've designed this course to help you transform unconscious patterns so you can grow together, not apart. What makes it radically holistic? Well, it's not just a bunch of information that you take in and forget about later. It combines somatics, energy work, AKA using your third eye, group coaching and support in between meetings. This course is co facilitated by my partner, Phoenix, who is a professional psychic with over nine years of professional training. We begin August 10th. And if you register by July 27th, my partner Phoenix, grace will gift you with a free couples astrology reading. These are super cool. These are super cool. She essentially combines both of your charts to read how compatible you are, what kind of karma you might have, and look at how you might support, challenge or trigger each other. Keep in mind, this is limited to only five couples. So this is a very small, intimate container where you can really receive some support. To register, visit conscious relating. org and click the conscious couple